In the prior art, systems having video display terminals have been utilized with other electronic equipment including mass or bulk memory in which informaton is stored in data bases and such information may be entered, retrieved and processed by an operator using a video display terminal. Such systems are widely used in many industries and businesses. One example of such use is in the insurance industry where insurance claim information is stored, processed to settle clams, analyzed to derive statistical and other business information, and to provide extremely rapid recall of previously stored informaton regarding claims or concerning an insurance holder. Another example of such use is in the medical profession. Medical and business records for private physicians and hospitals comprise much information such as patient personal information, history of treatment including hospitalization and medication, billing and payments, inventory of medical and other equipment and medicines, and information concerning medical personnel are easily updated and quickly retrievable to assist in diagnosis and treatment, billing, planning for medical equipment expenditures, equipment and plant maintenance, equipment replacement, plant expansion, and staffing, training, scheduling and replacement of medical and other personnel.
The extensive information required and generated by varied applications including those mentioned in the applications briefly described in the last paragraph are stored in large data bases that are typically made up of a number of smaller data bases. For example, in the medical field one data base is used to store medical histories, while another data base is used to store billing and payment information, yet another data base is used to store equipment inventory, maintenance and availability, and still another data base is used to store medical personnel information including work scheduling. The multiple data bases are not relationally tied together so that all information in different data bases regarding a single patient, doctor, or hospital information must be separately and laboriously retrieved.
Prior art uses of video terminals and associated equipment for the above described and many other applications are generally limited to the display of alphanumeric and sometimes graphical information. This excludes the display of much valuable information in the form of drawings, pictures and other image information which must be filed in hard form in file drawers or other filing facilities from which they must be manually retrieved and refiled. This is a time consuming approach which has improved very little over time.
Accordingly, there is a need in the prior art for equipment and techniques used with video terminals and associated equipment to quickly store and retrieve varied types of alphanumeric and graphical information in a relationally oriented data base. Such information may be represented in coded form, such as alphanumeric characters or graphic symbols represented by ASCII and other codes, or raster patterns logically comprised of rows and columns of pixels or pells, such as representations of pictures.